Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 | |
---|---|
Parliament of India | |
| |
Citation | Act No. 47 of 2019 |
Passed by | Lok Sabha |
Passed | 10 December 2019 |
Passed by | Rajya Sabha |
Passed | 11 December 2019 |
Assented to | 12 December 2019 |
Signed by | Ram Nath Kovind President of India |
Signed | 12 December 2019 |
Effective | Not yet; to be notified by the government on a date chosen by it.[1] |
Legislative history | |
First chamber: Lok Sabha | |
Bill title | Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 |
Bill citation | Bill No. 370 of 2019 |
Introduced by | Amit Shah Minister of Home Affairs |
Introduced | 9 December 2019 |
First reading | 9 December 2019 |
Second reading | 10 December 2019 |
Third reading | 11 December 2019 |
Amends | |
Citizenship Act, 1955 | |
Status: In force |
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act of 1955 by providing a path to Indian citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities that had fled persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014.[2] Muslims were not given such eligibility.[3][4] The act was the first time religion had been overtly used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law.[5][a][b]
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the Indian government,[6][7] had promised in previous election manifestos to offer Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from neighboring countries.[8][9] Under the 2019 amendment, migrants who had entered India by 31 December 2014, and had suffered "religious persecution or fear of religious persecution" in their country of origin were made eligible for citizenship.[2] The amendment also relaxed the residence requirement for naturalization of these migrants from eleven years to five.[10] Immediate beneficiaries of the Bill, according to the Intelligence Bureau of India, will be 31,313 refugees: 25,447 Hindus, 5,807 Sikhs, 55 Christians, 2 Buddhists and 2 Parsis.[11]
The amendment has been widely criticised as discriminating on the basis of religion, in particular for excluding Muslims.[3][4] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called it "fundamentally discriminatory", adding that while India's "goal of protecting persecuted groups is welcome", this should be accomplished through a non-discriminatory "robust national asylum system".[12] Critics express concerns that the bill would be used, along with the National Register of Citizens, to render many Muslim citizens stateless, as they may be unable to meet stringent birth or identity proof requirements.[13][14] Commentators also question the exclusion of persecuted religious minorities from other regions such as Tibet, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.[13][15] The Indian government says that Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are Muslim-majority countries therefore Muslims are "unlikely to face religious persecution" there.[9][16] However, certain Muslim groups, such as Hazaras and Ahmadis, have historically faced persecution in these countries.[17][18][19]
The passage of the legislation caused large-scale protests in India.[20] Assam and other northeastern states have seen violent demonstrations against the bill over fears that granting Indian citizenship to refugees and immigrants will cause a loss of their "political rights, culture and land rights" and motivate further migration from Bangladesh.[21][22][23] In other parts of India, protesters said the bill discriminated against Muslims and demanded that Indian citizenship be granted to Muslim refugees and immigrants.[24] Major protests against the Act were held at universities in India. Students at Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia alleged brutal suppression by the police.[25] The protests have led to the deaths of several protesters, injuries to protesters and police personnel, damage to public and private property, the detention of hundreds of people, and suspensions of local internet mobile phone connectivity in certain areas.[26][27] Some states have announced they will not implement the Act. The Union Home Ministry has said that states lack the legal power to stop the implementation of the CAA.[28]
Background
The Indian Constitution that was implemented in 1950 guaranteed citizenship to all of the country's residents at the commencement of the constitution, and made no distinction on the basis of religion.[29][30][31][32] The Indian government passed the Citizenship Act in 1955. The Act provided two means for foreigners to acquire Indian citizenship. People from "undivided India"[c] were given a means of registration after seven years of residency in India. Those from other countries were given a means of naturalisation after eleven years of residency in India.[34][35]
The Citizenship Act was amended in 1986, 1992, 2003, 2005 and 2015. In December 2003, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 with far-reaching revisions of the Citizenship Act. It added the notion of "illegal immigrants" to the Act, making them ineligible to apply for citizenship (by registration or naturalisation), and declaring their children also as illegal immigrants.[36][37] Illegal immigrants were defined as citizens of other countries who entered India without valid travel documents, or who remained in the country beyond the period permitted by their travel documents. They can be deported or jailed.[38]
The 2003 amendment also mandated the Government of India to create and maintain a National Register of Citizens. The bill received the full support of the Indian National Congress, as well as the Left parties such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)).[39][40][d] During the parliamentary debate on the amendment, the leader of opposition, Manmohan Singh, stated that refugees belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and other countries had faced persecution, and requested that they be treated more liberally in the grant of citizenship.[42][43][44] According to M.K. Venu the 2003 amendment formulation discussed by Advani and Singh was based on the idea that Muslim groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan that had experienced persecution also needed to be treated with compassion.[44]
A very large number of illegal immigrants, the largest numbers of whom are from Bangladesh, live in India. The Task Force on Border Management quoted the figure of 15 million illegal migrants in 2001. In 2004, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government stated in Parliament that there were 12 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants in India.[45] The reasons for the scale of migration include a porous border, historical migration patterns, economic reasons, and cultural and linguistic ties.[46]
India is not a signatory to either the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol.[47][48] It does not have a national policy on refugees. All refugees are classed as "illegal migrants". While India has been willing to host refugees, its traditional position formulated by Jawaharlal Nehru is that such refugees must return to their home countries after the situation returns to normal.[49][50] According to the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, India hosts refugees in excess of 456,000,[51] with about 200,000 from "non-neighbouring" countries hosted via the UNHCR.[49][52][e] According to Shuvro Sarker, since the 1950s and particularly since the 1990s, the Indian governments under various political parties have studied and drafted laws for the naturalization of refugees and asylum seekers. These drafts have struggled with issues relating to a mass influx of refugees, urban planning, cost of basic services, the obligations to protected tribes, the impact on pre-existing regional poverty levels within India.[54]
The "detection, deletion and deportation" of illegal migrants has been on the agenda of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 1996.[55] In its manifesto for the 2014 Indian general election, the BJP promised to provide a "natural home" for persecuted Hindu refugees.[56] An unknown number of Pakistani Hindu refugees live in India. Small groups of refugees arrived every year, citing religious persecution within Pakistan.[57][58] A much larger number of refugees, estimated at 5–13 million, arrived from Bangladesh over the decades due to a variety of complex factors.[59][60] In the 2016 assembly elections for the border state of Assam, the BJP leaders campaigned in the state promising voters that they would rid Assam of the Bangladeshis. Simultaneously, they also promised to protect Hindus who had fled religious persecution in Bangladesh.[61] In the context of an effort to identify and deport illegal immigrants, the proposal took a new meaning. Illegal migrants could be granted citizenship if they were non-Muslim, on the grounds that they were refugees; Muslims alone would be deported.[30]
The year before the 2016 elections, the government legalised refugees belonging to religious minorities from Pakistan and Bangladesh, granting them long-term visas. Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to "minority communities" were exempted from the requirements of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 and the Foreigners Act, 1946.[62] Specifically mentioned were "Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Buddhists," who had been "compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution". Eligibility for the exemption was made contingent on a migrant having arrived in India by 31 December 2014.[63]
In parallel to the drafting of an amendment to the 1955 Citizenship Act, the BJP government completed an effort to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state of Assam. The process for creating the NRC had been put in place by the Citizenship rules enacted in 2003, and had been implemented in Assam under Supreme Court supervision as a result of a 2014 Supreme Court ruling.[64] This was mandated under prior peace agreements in northeast, in particular the Assam Accord signed in the presence of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.[65][66] The updated register was made public in August 2019; approximately 1.9 million residents were not on the list, and were in danger of losing their citizenship.[67] Many of those affected were Bengali Hindus, who constitute a major voter base for the BJP; according to Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, BJP withdrew its support for the Assam NRC towards its end for this reason.[68][69] On 19 November 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah, declared in the Rajya Sabha of the Indian parliament that the National Register of Citizens would be implemented throughout the country.[70]
Legislative history
The BJP government introduced a bill to amend the citizenship law in 2016, which would have made non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh eligible for Indian citizenship.[71][72] Although this bill was passed by the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Indian parliament, it stalled in the Rajya Sabha, following widespread political opposition and protests in northeast India that did not want any migrants from Bangladesh. Opponents of the bill in Assam and the northeastern states of India stated that any migration from Bangladesh "irrespective of religion" would cause "loss of political rights and culture of the indigenous people".[72][73]
The BJP reiterated its commitment to amend the citizenship act in its 2019 election campaign. It stated that religious minorities such as Hindus and Sikhs are persecuted in neighboring Muslim-majority countries, and promised to fast track a path to citizenship for non-Muslim refugees.[74][75] After the elections, the BJP government drafted a bill that addressed the concerns of its northeastern states. It excluded Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur, except for non-tribal cities exempted under pre-existing regulations. It also excluded tribal areas of Assam.[76] The Indian government, while proposing an Amendment, said, that its bill aims to grant quicker access to citizenship to those who have fled religious persecution in neighbouring countries and have taken refuge in India.[16][77][3]
The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on 19 July 2016 as the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. It was referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 12 August 2016. The Committee submitted its report on 7 January 2019 to Parliament. The Bill was taken into consideration and passed by Lok Sabha on 8 January 2019. It was pending for consideration and passing by the Rajya Sabha. Consequent to dissolution of 16th Lok Sabha, this Bill has lapsed.[78]
After the formation of 17th Lok Sabha, the Union Cabinet cleared the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, on 4 December 2019 for introduction in the parliament.[72][79] The Bill was introduced in 17th Lok Sabha by the Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah on 9 December 2019 and was passed on 10 December 2019,[80] with 311 MPs voting in favour and 80 against the Bill.[81][82][83]
The bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha on 11 December 2019 with 125 votes in favour and 105 votes against it.[84][85] Those voted in favour included BJP allies such as Janata Dal (United), AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal, TDP and YSR Congress Party.[84][85]
After receiving assent from the President of India on 12 December 2019, the bill assumed the status of an act.[86] The act will come into force on a date chosen by the Government of India, and will be notified as such.[1] The implementation of the CAB began on 20 December 2019, when Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya gave citizenship certificates to seven refugees from Pakistan.[87]
The Amendments
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 amended the Citizenship Act, 1955, by inserting the following provisos in section 2, sub-section (1), after clause (b):[1]
"Provided that any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into India on or before the 31st day of December, 2014 and who has been exempted by the Central Government by or under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or any rule or order made thereunder, shall not be treated as illegal migrant for the purposes of this Act;"[1]
A new section 6B was inserted (in the section concerning naturalisation), with four clauses, the first of which stated::
(1) The Central Government or an authority specified by it in this behalf may, subject to such conditions, restrictions and manner as may be prescribed, on an application made in this behalf, grant a certificate of registration or certificate of naturalisation to a person referred to in the proviso to clause (b) of sub-section (1) of section 2.[1]
The "exempted" classes of persons were previously defined in the Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015, (issued under the Foreigners Act, 1946):[63]
3A. Exemption of certain class of foreigners. – (1) Persons belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who were compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution and entered into India on or before the 31st December, 2014
- (a) without valid documents including passport or other travel documents and who have been exempted under rule 4 from the provisions of rule 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950 [...]; or
- (b) with valid documents including passport or other travel document and the validity of any of such documents has expired,
are hereby granted exemption from the application of provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946, and the orders made thereunder in respect of their stay in India without such documents or after the expiry of those documents, as the case may be [...].[63]
The Rules had been further amended in 2016 by adding Afghanistan to the list of countries.[88]
Exemptions were granted to northeastern regions of India in the clause (4) of section 6B:
(4) Nothing in this section shall apply to tribal area of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram or Tripura as included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution and the area covered under "The Inner Line" notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873.'.[1]
Analysis
The Bill amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 to give eligibility for Indian citizenship to illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and who entered India on or before 31 December 2014. The bill does not mention Muslims.[89][90] According to Intelligence Bureau records, the immediate beneficiaries of the Amended Act will be 31,313 people: 25,447 Hindus, 5,807 Sikhs, 55 Christians, 2 Buddhists and 2 Parsis.[11][91]
Under the Act, one of the requirements for citizenship by naturalisation is that the applicant must have resided in India during the last 12 months, and for 11 of the previous 14 years. The Bill relaxes this 11-year requirement to five years for persons belonging to the same six religions and three countries. The bill exempts the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura from its applicability. It also exempts the areas regulated through the Inner Line Permit, which include Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland.[92][93][94] The inclusion of Manipur in Inner Line Permit was also announced on 9 December 2019.[76]
The Bill includes new provisions for cancellation of the registration of Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) if there are any violations of the provisions of this Act or provisions of any other law of India. It also adds the opportunity for the OCI holder to be heard before the cancellation.[1][72]
Exclusion of Muslims
Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are not offered citizenship under the new Act.[3][4][95] Critics have questioned the exclusion. The Amendment limits itself to the Muslim-majority neighbours of India and, secondly, takes no cognizance of the persecuted Muslims of those countries.[53] According to The Economist, if the Indian government was concerned about religious persecution, it should have included Ahmadiyyas – a Muslim sect who have been "viciously hounded in Pakistan as heretics", and the Hazaras – another Muslim sect who have been murdered by the Taliban in Afghanistan. They should be treated as minorities.[17]
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh are Muslim-majority countries that have modified their Constitutions in recent decades to declare Islam their official state religion. Therefore, according to the Indian government, Muslims in these Islamic countries are "unlikely to face religious persecution". The government states that Muslims cannot be "treated as persecuted minorities" in these Muslim-majority countries.[16][9] The BBC states that while these countries have provisions in their constitution guaranteeing non-Muslims rights, including the freedom to practice their religion, in practice non-Muslim populations have experienced discrimination and persecution.[16]
Some similar acts for persecuted religious minorities, excluding the majority religion, have been introduced in other secular countries such as United States, case in point being the "Religious Persecution Relief Act, 2016", which has a similar approach "this bill declares that Syrian nationals who are religious minorities in their country of origin: shall be classified as refugees of special humanitarian concern, shall be eligible for priority two processing under the refugee resettlement priority system"[96]. [97]
Exclusion of other persecuted communities
The Act does not include migrants from non-Muslim countries fleeing persecution to India, particularly Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar, Hindu refugees from Sri Lanka, and Buddhist refugees from Tibet, China.
The Act is silent about the Hindu refugees from Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Tamils were allowed to settle as refugees in Tamil Nadu in 1980s and 1990s due to systemic violence from the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka. They include 29,500 "hill country Tamils" (Malaiha).[50][98]
The Act does not provide relief to Tibetan Buddhist refugees.[13] They came to India in the 1950s and 1960s. Their status has been of refugees over the decades. According to a 1992 UNHCR report, the then Indian government stated that they remain refugees and do not have the right to acquire Indian nationality.[99]
The Act does not address Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar. The Indian government has already been deporting Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, despite the risk to their lives.[18][100]
Relationship with NRC
Commentators have expressed concerns that people who are unable to produce required documents to prove their citizenship and inclusion in the NRC will be accepted as migrants and given Indian citizenship under the Bill provided they are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Parsis and Jains but not Muslims; and the latter would risk becoming stateless because they are not included under the Bill.[67][101][102]
Reception
Protests
The passage of the Act triggered different types of protests and criticisms. In the eastern regions of India, protesters were against the naturalization of any and all refugees or migrants. They stated that any law that offers "prospect of citizenship will further encourage migration from Bangladesh".[21] Decades of migration, these protesters said, had already caused a "loss of political rights and culture" as well as land rights of the native people. According to them, the new provisions of this Act are against prior agreements such as the Assam Accord.[21][22] In other parts of India, political and student activists protested that the law "marginalizes Muslims, is prejudicial against Muslims" and sought that Muslim migrants and refugees should also be granted Indian citizenship per its secular foundations.[23]
After the bill was cleared on 4 December 2019, violent protests erupted in Assam, particularly in Guwahati.[103] Demonstrations were also held in Agartala, the capital of the state of Tripura.[104] By 16 December, six people had been killed, and fifty people injured, in clashes between police and protesters.[105][106] Assamese women protesters said they "want peace, not Bangladeshi migrants" and the influx of refugees and migrants would harm their state, culture and communal harmony.[22] The India-Japan summit in Guwahati, which was supposed to be attended by Shinzō Abe was cancelled.[107][108] The UK, USA, France, Israel and Canada issued travel warnings for people visiting India's north-east region, telling their citizens to "exercise caution".[109][110][111]
Internet access was restricted in Assam state. Curfew was declared in Assam and Tripura due to the protests.[112] The army was called in to as protesters defied those curfews. Railway services were suspended and some airlines started offering rescheduling or cancellation fee waivers in those areas.[113] Officials reported that at least two people died after clashes with police in Guwahati, Assam.[114]
Protests against the bill were held in several metropolitan cities across India, including Kolkata,[109] Delhi,[115][116] Mumbai,[84] Bengaluru,[117] Hyderabad,[118] and Jaipur.[115] Smaller rallies were also held in the southern states of Kerala and Karnataka.[109]
In Muslim-dominated parts of Delhi – India's capital, violent protests erupted, with a spokesperson Chaudhary Mateen Ahmad stating that people are protesting because "it discriminates against the Muslims". The protesters demanded that the law should grant Indian citizenship to Muslim immigrants and refugees too.[24] On 15 December, police forcefully entered the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia university, where protests were being held, and detained the students. Police used batons and tear gas on the students. More than a hundred students were injured and an equal number were detained. The police action was widely criticized, and resulted in protests across the country.[119][120][121]
Indian government response
On 16 December, after the protests entered the fifth day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed for calm in a series of tweets saying "No Indian has anything to worry regarding this act. This act is only for those who have faced years of persecution outside and have no other place to go except India".[106][122] As CAA protests raised concerns on combined effects of CAA with NRC, the government has sought to downplay its narrative on NRC, with both the PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah stating that there has been no talk on pan-Indian NRC in their government for now, and neither the cabinet nor the legal department has discussed it. [123] [124]
On 19 December, police banned protests in several parts of India with the imposition of section 144 which prohibits the gathering of more than 4 individuals in a public space as being unlawful, namely, parts of the capital Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka, including Bangalore. Police in Chennai denied permission for marches, rallies or any other demonstration.[125][126] Internet services were shutdown in several parts of Delhi. As a result of defining the ban, thousands of protesters were detained, including several opposition leaders and activists such as Ramachandra Guha, Sitaram Yechury, Yogendra Yadav, Umar Khalid, Sandeep Dikshit, Tehseen Poonawalla and D Raja.[127][128][129]
Rallies in support
Student groups such as those from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad – a student wing of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, held rallies in support of the amended Citizenship Act.[130][131] Rallies in support of the Amendment Act were led by BJP leaders in West Bengal, who alleged that the state government blocked them. They also accused the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's party members of misinforming the state's residents about the new law.[132] Similarly, some 15,000 people joined a BJP-organized rally in support of the Act in Rajasthan.[133] On 20 December 2019, scores of people held demonstrations in Central Park, Connaught Place, New Delhi in support of the Act.[134][135] Hundreds on people gathered in Pune, forming a human chain, in support of CAA, on 22 December.[136][137]
Refugees
Hindu refugee families in Assam, living since the 1960s in a refugee camp and who had been denied Indian citizenship so far, said that the Amendment had "kindled hope" at first. They added that the recent protests against the Act and demands for its cancellation have made them fearful of the future.[138] In New Delhi, about 600 refugees from Pakistan living in a camp consisting of tiny shanties celebrated the new law.[139] A delegation of Sikh refugees who had arrived from Afghanistan three decades ago thanked the Indian government for amending the citizenship law. They stated the Amended law would allow them to finally gain Indian citizenship and "join the mainstream".[140]
Some Rohingya Muslim refugees in India were not optimistic about the Amendment and feared they would be deported.[141][142] Other Rohingya refugees expressed gratitude at having been allowed to stay in India, but did not make any comments specific to the Act lest they provoke a backlash. They said that local police had asked them not to protest against the Act.[143]
Political and legal challenge
Chief Ministers of Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Punjab, Kerala and Rajasthan and union territory of Puducherry – all led by non-BJP governments – said they will not implement the law.[144][145][109] According to the Union Home Ministry, states lack the legal power to stop the implementation of CAA. The Ministry stated that "the new legislation has been enacted under the Union List of the 7th Schedule of the Constitution. The states have no power to reject it".[28] Modi stated on 21 December that the NRC had only been implemented in Assam to follow a directive from the Supreme Court of India, and that there had been no decision taken to implement it nation-wide.[146]
The Indian Union Muslim League petitioned the Supreme Court of India to declare the bill illegal.[147] The royal family of Tripura also filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the bill.[112] The first hearing by the Supreme Court of India on 60 petitions challenging the Act was on 18 December 2019. During the first hearing, the court declined to stay implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. The court has set 22 January 2020 as the next date of hearing.[148] The bill was opposed by the Indian National Congress, who said it would create communal tensions and polarize India.[149]
Commentary and petitions
The foreign intelligence agency of India, R&AW, had expressed concern while deposing in front of the joint parliamentary committee, and had stated that the bill could be used by agents of the foreign intelligence agencies to infiltrate legally into India.[150] Former National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon called the incident a self inflicted goal that has isolated India from the International community.[151]
Harish Salve, former Solicitor General of India, said that the bill does not violate Article 14, Article 25 and Article 21 of the Constitution of India.[152] He points out that Article 15 and Article 21 apply only to the entities which reside in India, not to those which want to enter India. Salve says that the bill doesn't violate secularism and describes it as a 'narrowly-tailored' provision that is designed to address a specific issue.[153]
A group of prominent individuals and organizations from around 12 countries representing minorities of Bangladesh released a joint statement in which they described the Act as “humanitarian” provision through which India has “partially fulfilled” it's obligations towards the minorities of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.[154] The National Sikh Front – a group representing the Sikhs in Jammu and Kashmir, stated that it supports the Act because it will help the Sikh refugees in India who left Afghanistan.[155]
A petition opposing the bill was signed by more 1,000 Indian scientists and scholars.[156] The petition stated that "The use of religion as a criterion for citizenship in the proposed bill" was "inconsistent with the basic structure of the Constitution".[156] A similar number of Indian academicians and intellectuals released a statement in support of the legislation.[157] The petition stated that the act "fulfills the long-standing demand of providing refuge to persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan".[158]
International reactions
- United Nations: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) criticized the Act and called it "fundamentally discriminatory in nature". It added, "Although India’s broader naturalization laws remain in place, these amendments will have a discriminatory effect on people’s access to nationality."[159]
- European Union: Ambassador of the European Union to India, Ugo Astuto, said that he trusts that the outcome of the CAA discussion would be in line with the high standards set by the Indian constitution.[160]
- United States: The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) called for sanctions[161] against Amit Shah and "other principal leadership" over passage of the Bill.[162] India's Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement in response, stating that the statement made by the USCIRF was "neither accurate nor warranted", and that neither the CAA nor the NRC sought to strip Indian citizens of citizenship.[163][164][165] The United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs questioned the intent of the Bill and noted that "[a]ny religious test for citizenship undermines this most basic democratic tenet."[166] On 19 December, however, the United States Secretary of State said that the US respects Indian democracy since it has a “robust” internal debate on the Citizenship Act.[167]
- Russia: Deputy Russian Ambassador to India, Roman Babushkin, said that Russia considers the legislation an internal matter of India.[168]
- France: Ambassador of France to India, Emmanuel Lenain, said that France considers the legislation an internal matter of India and respects it.[169]
- Pakistan: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan criticized the Act.[170] Pakistan's National Assembly passed a resolution labeling the Act as a “discriminatory law” and argued that it contravened "bilateral agreements and understandings between India and Pakistan, particularly those on security and rights of minorities in the respective countries".[171]
- Bangladesh: Bangladesh's Minister of Foreign Affairs, A. K. Abdul Momen said that Bill could weaken India's historic character as a secular nation and denied that minorities were facing religious persecution in his country.[172]
- Maldives: Maldives' Parliament Speaker and former president, Mohamed Nasheed, said that CAA is an internal issue of India and was democratically passed through both the houses of the Parliament.[173]
- Malaysia: The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, criticized the law and said it could "deprive some Muslims of their citizenship." India rejected the criticism and said the law does not "deprive any Indian of any faith of her or his citizenship."[174]
- Organisation of Islamic Cooperation: OIC expressed their concern about present situation of CAA-NRC and urged the Government of India to ensure the safety of the Muslim minority and to follow obligation of Charter of the United Nations.[175]
See also
- The Foreigners Act, 1946
- Indian nationality law
- National Register of Citizens of India
- Illegal immigration to India
- Refugees in India
- Religious discrimination in Pakistan
- 1971 Bangladesh genocide
- Assam Accord
- Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983
Notes
- ^ Sharma (2019), p. 523: "First, citizenship status biased towards religious identity is by no means a new idea.... A careful study of the policies and laws related to citizenship, adopted since independence substantiate the assertion that citizenship in India has always been based on an implicit belief that India is for Hindus."
- ^ Sen (2018), pp. 10–11: "Nehru’s response [to Patel's warning] made it clear that Muslim migrants from Pakistan could not join the ranks of refugees in India... Thus, despite broad public statements promising citizenship to all displaced persons from Pakistan, Hindu migrants alone counted as citizen-refugees in postpartition India."
- ^ The Act defines "undivided India" as "India as defined in the Government of India Act, 1935, as originally enacted".[33] It included, in addition to India, the present day Pakistan and Bangladesh.
- ^ In 2012, the then CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat had written to Manmohan Singh, who was prime minister at the time, reminding him of his 2003 statement and urging him to make a suitable amendment in policy to allow “minority community refugees” easy citizenship.[41]
- ^ Indian government statistics in 2014 show 289,394 "stateless persons" in India. The majority were from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (about 100,000 each), followed by those from Tibet, Myanmar, Pakistan and Afghanistan.[53]
References
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The government, ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said the bill seeks to protect religious minorities who fled persecution in their home countries.
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- Nakatani, Tetsuya (2000), "Away from Home : The Movement and Settlement of Refugees from East Pakistan in West Bengal, India", Journal Of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12: 73–, doi:10.11384/jjasas1989.2000.7
- Poddar, Mihika (2018), "The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016: international law on religion-based discrimination and naturalisation law", Indian Law Review, 2 (1): 108–118, doi:10.1080/24730580.2018.1512290
- Ranjan, Amit (2019), "National Register of Citizen Update: History and its impact", Asian Ethnicity: 1–17, doi:10.1080/14631369.2019.1629274
- Roy, Anupama (2010), Mapping Citizenship in India, OUP India, ISBN 978-0-19-908820-1
- Roy, Anupama (14 December 2019), "The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and the Aporia of Citizenship", Economic and Political Weekly, 54 (49)
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- Sadiq, Kamal (2008), Paper Citizens: How Illegal Immigrants Acquire Citizenship in Developing Countries, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-970780-5
- Sarker, Shuvro Prosun (2017), Refugee Law in India: The Road from Ambiguity to Protection, Springer, ISBN 978-981-10-4807-4
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Further reading
External links
- The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. The Gazette of India. (2019)
- Report of Refugee Populations in India, Human Rights Law Network, November 2007.
- Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2015 and Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015, The Gazette of India No. 553, 8 September 2015.
- Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as introduced in Lok Sabha, 2016, PRS Legislative Research, 2016.
- Report of the Joint Parliament Committee, Lok Sabha Secretariat, 2019 (via PRS Legislative Research).
- Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as introduced in Lok Sabha, 2019, via PRS Legislative Research, 2019.
- Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as passed by the Lok Sabha, 2019, via PRS Legislative Research, 2019.